“And is it possible,” said Bob, “that there are persons who will enter into such bargains?” “No doubt of it; nay, there was an instance of a man really selling his own body to a Surgeon, to be appropriated to his own purposes when dead, for a certain weekly sum secured to him while living; but in robbing the church-yards there are always many engaged in the rig--for notice is generally given that the body will be removed in the night, to which the Sexton is made privy, and receives the information with as much ease as he did to have it brought--his price being a guinea for the use of the _grubbing irons_, adjusting the grave, &c. This system is generally carried on in little country church-yards within a few miles of London. A hackney-coach or a cart is ready to receive the stolen property, and there cannot be a doubt but many of these depredations are attended with success, the parties escaping with their prey undetected--nay, I know of an instance that occurred a short time back, of a young man who was buried at Wesley's Chapel, on which occasion one of the mourners, a little more wary than the rest, could not help observing two or three rough fellows in the ground during the ceremony, which aroused his suspicion that they intended after interment to have the body of his departed friend; this idea became so strongly rooted in his mind, that he imparted his suspicions to the remainder of those who had followed him: himself and another therefore determined if possible to satisfy themselves upon the point, by returning in the dusk of the evening to reconnoitre. They accordingly proceeded to the spot, but the gates being shut, one of them climbed to the top of the wall, where he discovered the very parties, he had before noticed, in the act of wrenching open the coffin. Here they are, said he, hard at it, as I expected. But before he and his friend could get over the wall, the villains effected their escape, leaving behind them a capacious sack and all the implements of their infernal trade. They secured the body, had ~158~~it conveyed home again, and in a few days re-buried it in a place of greater security.{1} Bob was surprised at this description of the _Resurrection-rig_, but was quickly drawn from his contemplation of the depravity of human nature, and what he could not help thinking the dirty employments of life, by a shouting apparently from several voices as they passed the end of St. Martin's Lane: it came from about eight persons, who appeared to be journeymen mechanics, with pipes in their mouths, some of them rather _rorytorious_,{2} who, as they approached, broke altogether into the following SONG.{3} “I'm a frolicsome young fellow, I live at my ease, I work when I like, and I play when I please; I'm frolicsome, good-natured--I'm happy and free, And I care not a jot what the world thinks of me.